CPTnet
24 July 2006

HEBRON REFLECTION: A different image of Hamas

by Dianne Roe

Last January I returned to the farming village of Beit Ummar, between
Bethlehem and Hebron, to visit families there. A woman joined me on the
dirt path. The elections were on everyone's mind.

"I will vote for Hamas," she told me. "You are from America. You probably
think Hamas is terrorist. Our new mayor is from Hamas. Do you think we are
terrorists?"

I looked at her. She did not fit the image most people in North America
have of Hamas. Beit Ummar is a farming village that named one of its areas,
Jimmy Carter Quarter, after the former president visited. "No, I do not
think you are terrorists," I answered.

"Our mayor's name is Farhan Al Qam," she said.

"I lived with the Al Qam family!" I told her. The new Hamas mayor is part
of my family, I thought.

A few weeks later Bourke Kennedy and I met Mayor Farhan Al Qam and asked him
if he would welcome Israelis and internationals to his village. "They are
most welcome," he answered. "If anyone can help our farmers gain access to
their land, we hope they will come."

Then we asked him about Hamas. He smiled as if in anticipation of our
question and spoke to us about the brotherhood of all and the other ideals
that were the foundations of Hamas. He told us he would organize the
farmers and we would tell Ezra, an Israeli from the group Ta'ayush that he
would invite them to a meeting at their convenience. Out of the subsequent
meeting between the villagers and Israelis, a grassroots committee formed.
On 7 July 2006, in the fields of Beit Ummar, near the Israeli settlement of
Karme Tsur, I saw some of the fruits of those meetings.

Mayor Farhan Al Qam led hundreds of villagers from the mosque to the fields.
They knelt for Friday prayers on the land that Israeli settlers and soldiers
had prevented the farmers from accessing. Internationals and Israelis,
including Arik Ascherman of Rabbis for Human Rights (RHR), and Ezra from
Ta'ayush, waited between Karme Tsur and the farmers.

When an armed Israeli settler moved in the direction of the Palestinians,
Ascherman stood in between. When Palestinian youth responded with stones,
the Beit Ummar mayor ushered them back to the village. Most of the youth
left then with the adults, only a few boys threw stayed and threw stones. I
marveled at the discipline, knowing that the day before the Israeli military
had killed twenty Palestinians in Gaza.

Can there arise a voice for nonviolence from Hamas? For the past five
years, in villages all over the West Bank, Israelis, Palestinians and
internationals have worked together to create a nonviolent movement. Who is
listening? How can the international community support these steps for
reconciliation and justice?

To view a video clip of Beit Ummar farmers go to:

http://www.cpt.org/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=July-7,-2006,-Beit-U
mmar